How did the Anti-Federalists influence the creation of the Bill of Rights?

0:00Video Title: How did the Anti-Federalists influence the creation of the Bill of Rights?

0:01Video URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFeWUVab38A Transcript generated by YouTube Transcript Generator - Extract transcripts from any YouTube video instantly at https://transcriptgenerator.org ======================================== Madison understood when the ratifying conventions for the Constitution began. There were many Americans and among them many leaders who had been participants in the Revolution, who did not want a strong federal government, who did not want a central government, who believed that the states had fought the Revolution for their own independence and that's what the Articles of Confederation confirmed. Here was some convention trying to produce a new constitution,

0:45that centralized a lot of things that centralized control of trade, that centralized currency, and that would include taxation to support that government. When the ratifying conventions were held, many of them had more anti-federalists, that is against the creation of the federal government than pro-federalists, or I call them nationalists, because that's really what they were. In these conventions, the anti-federalists, what they really wanted was to get rid of the power of the federal government to tax, to regulate commerce, to create a currency. That is they wanted to destroy the powers that had just been put into the government. But they knew that that wouldn't really rouse the American public. Instead, in the conventions, they gave speeches

1:42about how because there was no bill of rights, no declaration of the rights of the people. This proved that the federal government was going to be tyrannical and this proved that the nationalists were out to create tyranny. That was a very effective argument. It was not true, but it was what today we would call a scare tactic. Be careful. This government is designed to create a tyranny to oppress you and it was pretty effective. That's when Madison thought it was an era not to have a declaration of rights. They called it a declaration of rights until later it was called the Bill of Rights. The Federalists squeaked through. They got the Constitution ratified. But the anti-federalist sentiment was still very strong. Men like

2:42Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams, Elbridge Gary. Some of these anti-federalists, by the way, ran for the first Federal Congress. Though the nationalist, the federalist, that is Madison and his friends won control over the first Federal Congress. They controlled the Senate, they controlled the House, and with George Washington, they controlled the presidency. There was still anti federal voices, and the general population was still pretty suspicious of this new government. Students have to remember, we think of the federal government as, you know, there it is. It's always been there. It's always going to be there.

3:30Although given recent politics, maybe they're a little more nervous about it, but in 1789, when the first Federal Congress met. People didn't know if it was going to last a year, two years, five years. Ben Franklin, who was the most optimistic guy in town, had said at the end of the Constitutional Convention, if this last 10 years, this Constitution, we will have done our duty. There was a lot of anxiety, and Madison decided he had a way to deal with the anti-federalists. That is, he had a way to separate these anti-federalist leaders in government from their base. That is the general American population that were being told they should be really anxious about this federal government. He figured out that if the federal government passed a bill of rights, that would calm the populace,

4:40and he could control Madison was very strategic. He was really smart about these kinds of things. He could control what would be in the Bill of Rights. There were 120 proposals for amendments to the Constitution in those ratifying conventions. The most dangerous ones were the ones that said the federal government shouldn't control trade.

5:09The federal government shouldn't have the power to tax, the federal government shouldn't have a national currency. Those were the ones that would be the most dangerous. Madison, when he proposed 36 amendments to the Constitution that would be a Bill of Rights, didn't include any of the dangerous ones. He only included the ones that had to do with what we would call today civil rights. He thought, if we can pass this, we can preserve the federal government's powers, and we can alleviate the anxiety people have that the federal government was just a plot to tyrannize them. He thought everybody in the House of Representatives would say, sure, let's do it. The federalists in the House of Representatives, he thought,

6:05there's not going to be any problem doing this. Madison was often right. In this case, he was really wrong. Because the men in the House, many of them had been in the Constitutional convention. They were simply annoyed by Madison. What are you proposing this nonsense? We already talked about this. We don't need to do that. We have important things we're doing. We have to create the judiciary. We have to decide where the capitol is going to be. We have so many important things on our agenda. Why are you bothering us with this? Madison was stunned. But one thing you can say, little Jimmy Madison. He is very small man, and they called him Little Jimmy and also, he was a terrible writer. These 36 proposals were filled with legales and lots of colons

6:58and lots of semi colons, and they went on and on. They were not really ready for prime time. He persisted. One thing about him, he was persistent and every month. June, July he would re-propose this bill of rights. And finally, he really wore the federalists down, and they said, in effect, he's not going to leave us alone till we do this, so let's hear what he has to say. The House took his 36 proposals and condensed them, wrote them in clearer English and adopted them.

7:40There were 12 of them. He had had 36 because he had separated out freedom of religion, freedom of the press and they condensed that into one amendment, which was, in fact, the third amendment in the original format. They sent it up to the Senate.